In the spirit of Gothic, Piranha unveils another brilliant, gorgeous, and entirely unforgiving world.
Sound: 9 - excellent voice talent
Gameplay: 6 - diverse (+), steep difficulty, lots of running (-)
Replay Value: 7 - it'll be good next year, too
Tilt: 9 - unmatched depth and variety
Overall: 7.5
Somehow I had forgotten about Risen until the day it was released, when a co-worker mentioned it. When I logged onto Steam and discovered Risen was made by Piranha Bytes, I immediately bought it without having played a demo, something I very rarely do. This should tell you what a fan I am of Piranha and the Gothic franchise.
Let's be frank: this game is Gothic 4. After Gothic 3 was released, Piranha lost the rights to Gothic, but thankfully they continued the legacy under a new name. Risen gives us the same wondrous depth and elaborate detail that Gothic 1-3 gave us . . . and raises the difficulty bar yet another notch, now making it *completely* inaccessible to casual gamers and giving even hardcore Gothic fanboys a few moments of doubt.
Risen takes place on an island where ancient temples have suddenly and mysteriously risen from the earth, hence the name. The empire has sent its Inquisition to investigate the island, choking the once free citizens of Harbour Town and inciting a rebellion among newly established outlaws. You play a nameless stowaway who, along with one other passenger, has miraculously survived a devastating storm only to enjoy the dubious misfortune of being caught up in a civil war.
Risen clearly uses an updated Gothic III engine; thus, it looks and plays very much the same, with a few expected graphical improvements made in the last couple years (e.g., the water looks gorgeous). Combat is significantly improved, but I say that with a large dose of salt. You can finally block animal attacks with a shield (gasp!), and dodging is a mainstay of survival, not to mention fun. Unfortunately, the initial difficulty is absolutely insane, and you will reload many, many, many times before you're done with the first half of the first chapter. This alone will turn away the vast majority of potential fans. I already know one person who gave up after playing the demo for five minutes.
If you're a fan of Gothic like I am, you know that a fabulous game lies hidden beneath the ridiculous number of seemingly unfair and pointless deaths, but even I had a hard time toughing this one out beyond 15 minutes, and I had to cheat to get through one particularly unbalanced fight, after having reloaded at least ten times, possibly 15 or 20. In retrospect, I probably could have avoided the fight with some clever thievery; I didn't think of this because I didn't want to play a thief. Despite the variety of options you're given, both in adventuring and dialog, some obvious choices are missing: why can't you give the sword back to the blacksmith? Why can't you give back the protection money? Given their intimate attention to detail, you'd think the quest designers would have thought of these things. Retrospect is not one of Risen's strengths.
Of course, every game has its flaws, and if combat is Risen's number-one flaw, then the lack of desirable choices is second, and it's really not a big deal, because the number and relevance of choices is very impressive. Dialogs are very well-written, even conversational, and the voice talent is top-notch. The music is atmospheric and fits the world perfectly. (A sign of great music is that you don't notice it until you listen to it, and then you keep listening to it.) Controls are a bit awkward but manageable (and of course entirely configurable). The graphics are amazing, and the audio as well. In a word, the game's presentation is excellent.
I can sum Risen up with the following statement: I've been playing the game rigorously since it was released (two nights ago at the time of writing), and I have less than an hour of actual play time on my in-game clock. You can imagine the number of times I had to reload. But I'm still playing, because, when I'm not being killed by random monsters or outlaws, I'm greatly enjoying the atmosphere and exploration. If you can tolerate the game long enough to get a decent weapon and some armor, you'll have a much easier time of things, and you'll begin to understand why Piranha Bytes has such a loyal following. The spirit of Gothic has Risen from the ashes of commercial propriety.